misogyny is seen as ideologically neutral, not worth commenting on, a "different" issue relative to racial/ethnic hatred. and i don't know what to do with that when it is, increasingly, the load bearing underpinning of the multiracial far right.

"my home equity isn't real wealth and also you'll take my home equity from my cold dead hands"

[bowling alone voice] the real sign of how truly "bowling alone" our society has become is that we're getting these paeans to the most ephemeral and commercial of transactions, like "talking to a cashier" or "getting annoyed by a taxi driver" and not anything approaching actual community

listen to theory www.liberalcurrents.com/against-slop...

my takeaway from this conversation with matt darling is that the vibecession is real and measurable and also extremely mysterious despite the wealth of data we have everyone telling you "well OBVIOUSLY it's ___" is not being honest www.liberalcurrents.com/measuring-th...

A lot of AI criticism makes me feel like someone says “the automobile has been disastrous for society” and I’m nodding along like “yeah I actually really agree, I think that car centric urban design has-“ and then they add “also it’s a scam, cars break down after more than ten miles anyway”

good talk with elizabeth wilkins about the politics, the policy, and in some deeper sense the moral compact of taxation: taxes are an expression of the fact that we're all in this together... which gives a special meaning to the thing where billionaires don't pay any fucking taxes

Today @elizabethwwilkins.bsky.social very convincingly argues to @sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com that Democrats should CANNOT become the party of tax cuts if they wish to fund everything liberals and progressives care about www.liberalcurrents.com/against-slop...

Something I've been thinking about is kinda a one sentence description of a left-wing economic vision for America and I think it's "a life of leisure and luxury for Americans, with no servants and no slaves."

The progressive bloc in Congress, led by the same senator who is currently trying to block weapon sales to Israel, was the group responsible for rallying support for the first ever War Powers Resolution passed by both chambers of Congress— and it was about Saudi Arabia. The whininess is obscene.

as bouie put it, "gotta go hunting where the ducks are--and there are a whole lotta ducks in the suburbs"

"The Parasocial Style in American Politics" is an incredibly good title. Deserves one of my highest compliments: it's amazing someone didn't think of it sooner. @aselrod.bsky.social's full argument about the internet and social media's societal impact is good too.

The Wellness industry has the same greed as the biomedical industry but nothing it sells you actually works

I’m unable to be at this conference I helped put together, but I am thrilled at the lineup and ideas people can come enjoy for FREE @hollybfletcher.bsky.social @shortle.bsky.social and @adamgurri.liberalcurrents.com will be running the panels, and it should be an excellent time

thanks again @andreapitzer.bsky.social @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social @mjtoma.bsky.social @adamgurri.liberalcurrents.com @sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com @dollemore.com @shikhadalmia.bsky.social & more for doing interviews you can follow everyone profiled (& a similar) here: go.bsky.app/S917t2b

🎵 in print 🎵🎶

Because Albany will prioritize anything above housing. They wanted high affordability requirements – they got them. But development was still profitable, so the building trades looked for their pound of flesh too, and state legislators were all too happy to give it to them.

Thursday! What a concept!

me joining in a dogpile: PERISH IN FLAMES, UNRIGHTEOUS me when the dogpile target quote-skeets me: how dare you direct harassment my way??

remember the “i’m a smol bean why did you ban me mr mods” after talking out of pocket shows a real lack of poaster’s bushido.

its true that i dont understand how the supreme court operates. for example do you get the free RV and house for your mom before or after issuing favorable rulings? is it a *wink wink* deal or more explicit? these are the things the general public doesnt understand

I like this @aselrod.bsky.social depiction of Trump as a creature of media pathologies. I don't think it's fully understood how deeply a wholly invented version of him penetrated into the culture and how that allowed him to shrug off his disastrous 1st term. www.liberalcurrents.com/the-parasoci...

I wrote about how parasociality invades our political lives, from Trumpism to the KHive to Will Stancil discourse. I hope you’ll give it a read www.liberalcurrents.com/the-parasoci...

Great stuff.

i just have to say that if you think mr signal and will stancil have the same politics you are high

wow center left parties should win by appealing to me, personally, who could have saw that coming

By contrast, a majority of the population were peasants living the idiocy of rural life, loyal to local notables. Today's factory workers are thus more like peasants, and the most radical class is again the most urbanized, whose work is at the leading edge of value creation: the mass intelligentsia.

“Writing is hard.” Thrilled to share that this simple idea led to a new paper in Political Analysis! Where most text methods focus on content, I test if expression is also effortful action. I find simple measures like character counts reveal attitudes and predict voting. cup.org/4cUmoXi 1/

The Democratic Party is defining itself around affordability. But Jon Ossoff is emphasizing another idea too: corruption. My look at this reelection campaign and why it's resonating both in Georgia and nationally. newrepublic.com/article/2099...

In re: the Louise Lucas Affair They're continuing to build the case for us, concerning the necessity of going sicko mode when the shoe is finally back on the other foot Every single elected Democrat and public intellectual counseling moderation in the face of this needs to be shouted down

Fantastic article exploring different categories of Rent. IMO the beating heart of leftish political goals should be the elimination of Rents (AKA Georgism).

Trans people can be wrong, and jerks. Cis people can be nice, and allies. Sometimes, a cis person who has trans friends and family they love is right, and a self-serving trans influencer who makes more money if people are mad is wrong. I guess…look for the helpers. That’s it.

I think being an urban knowledge worker is a noble aspiration. Cities are great, earning a wage with your knowledge is great. There is nothing to feel self-conscious about. It’s simply The Good Life. PMC libs should feel less self-conscious. It’s far more noble than being a farmer lol

Neither a “class in itself” nor a “class for itself” but rather a new third thing: a class against itself

i think not unrelated to this is that the dems are steadily becoming the party of the professional-managerial class and are incredibly embarrassed about this. this of course mirrors the pmc itself, which instead of achieving class consciousness has achieved "class neuroticism"

this raises a point i think is worth making: imo a lot of the complaining about academic speak from D pols is actually complaining about nonprofit speak, but for obvious reasons - nonprofits are key players in D coalition - it’s safer to punch at academia than, say, the ACLU

We did get a like...essay-length reply to @radtranslib.bsky.social's essay there today, so that's something www.reddit.com/r/LiberalCur...

Just a reminder we're Trying to Make r/Liberalcurrents Happen; right now it's mostly just me sharing links but we'd love it to be a more active community www.reddit.com/r/LiberalCur...

“I invoke Marx not to abolish the market, but to defend it; not to destroy free exchange, but to support it. You will not find support for Stalinist-style central planning in this essay, but you will find an analysis of how the rentier class drains wealth from the economy”

This is really good and is I think the first thing I've ever read that comes so close to my own political economy worldview, which is basically that markets are good but rents are bad:

I don't think libertarians should become The Joker. I think when they do it they're reinforcing increasing economic and political polarization.

There's an interesting observation here in how a "limited war" in the form of "raiding/punitive expedition" is the median inter-state violence incident so this is a regression if anything

QED I'm literally a trans woman sexual assault survivor

"the stancil-signal bluewave coalition turbocentrists" is a real 'you awake in the mountains of carthage' kind of moment

Also a major cause for the institutional degeneration of *A LOT* of post-independence states in the first few decades after WW2. A lot of their leaders were socialist intellectuals who thought the state was decades at most from withering away and obsoleting their own sectarian conflicts.

Woke 2 is queer Ukrainians using Lockmart-derived missiles to kinetically protest Russian oil production.

Nothing but respect for MY pan-role stealth aircraft.

this is the basic reality-distortion field aspect of mobbing. the friend/enemy distinction in your brain grabs hold of your reason and drags it around like a dog. you stop being able to see the world in front of your face.

You know, I was thinking about mythology & folklore and it occurred to me just how utterly poisonous the well attested existence of something like a mythical Siren - something that exploits the appearance of beauty & gentleness to prey on the unwary - would be to ordinary societal values & dynamics.